What a season it has already been and what a season to come! Our family is moving! Like, really moving. My husband and I have each lived in Bangkok for 10 years now, met 6 years ago and have been married for 4. But now is the time for change and this summer, we’ll be swapping Thailand’s sunshine for Brazil’s
Here’s a sneak peak into the world of international teaching and what the process for changing locations looks like.
| 1. Notify Your School – Decide when to inform your current school and secure recommendations. |
| 2. Sign Up for Recruitment Platforms – Create profiles on sites like Search Associates, TES, Schrole, or Teacher Horizons. |
| 3. Apply to Jobs – Customize cover letters, track applications, and send them out efficiently. |
| 4. Interview Process – Prepare for multiple rounds, research schools, and compare offers. |
| 5. Check School Reviews – Use platforms like International School Review to get insider perspectives. |
| 6. Decision Time – Weigh salary, cost of living, and lifestyle factors before accepting an offer. |
| 7. Seal the Deal – Sign the contract, prepare for visas, and start planning the move! |
Step 1: Letting our current International School know we are leaving
This is the most stressful step and is often skipped/prolonged. International schools tend to ask their teachers for a Letter of Intent, stating that you intend to return for the next school year. In Bangkok, this typically happens in November and some schools even earlier in the school year. It makes sense in their perspective; they need to prepare for the hiring season and lock down new recruits that will potentially be moving counties. But as a teacher, that can be quite stressful to sign if you have no idea if there are other jobs available.
I know of coworkers who have signed it, applied to other places and broke the Letter of Intent. It went well, no hard feelings. I’ve also heard horror stories of principals or super intendants making it hell for that teacher or even contacting the new school to inform them that so-and-so broke contract. Ultimately, how this plays out often depends on your administration’s approach.
Another reason why you might want to inform your current school that you intend to move on is so that you can seek recommendation from your principals/head of schools. This was our reasoning. We knew we wanted to move this year so we took the plunge and told my husband’s school as early as October so we could get those letters of recommendation in order.
Letters of Intent really make teacher life tricky. I know friends who have not signed them and sought new jobs only to decide they wanted to remain at the current school. One teacher was pushed out of her job and not allowed to return. One teacher returned the next year but was never trusted in his role. And yet another teacher was told often how thankful the school was that she decided to stay. In each situation, it was a different teacher and a different principal so it’s hard to say how it will go for you until you take the leap.
Step 2: Make all the online accounts
There are international school recruitment agencies that connect you to a number of schools. In our experience, this is really the only way to be hired at any of the top tier schools. While you can search for job openings through the school website, if you aren’t looking to be hired at a specific school, you would be wasting your time.
We signed up with two sites: Search Associates and TES.
Search Associates has a function to connect two accounts together as a teaching couple. This meant that schools could easily move between my husband’s and my accounts. We did have to pay for each account but this included a ticket to one job fair (in the city we currently live in! What luck) and many top tier schools only consider Search Associates.
TES is completely free and still has a good selection of schools. Many schools on TES were British school system. Since that is my husband’s background, we figured this would be a “might as well” option to add to our Search Associates front.
Some other recruitment agencies that I have heard are helpful are Schrole and Teacher Horizons.
Step 3: Apply, Apply, Apply!
With my husband at work and my daughter napping, I began the arduous journey of applying to every possible position that fit in the regions we prioritized. At first, we mostly looked at East Asia and Western Europe, hoping to find a place closer to both of our families in America. By November, there were many already beginning to post positions on both sites.
On good days, I would have 8 to 12 applications out before I had to get back to mother duties. While both sites had a set up account that would upload your resume and auto fill answers to a number of questions, I still had to create and upload a resume for that specific application. Soon I had a folder in my storage with a long list of…
- Husband-cover letter- Subject 1
- Husband-cover letter- Subject 2
- Husband-cover letter- Subject 1&2
- ^same for me
- Couple-cover letter- Subject 1&2
- Couple-cover letter- Subjects 3&5 highlight extracurricular
- Couple-cover letter- no chance in hell but fast learners
I would go in, change the school name, save as PDF and send. Did chatgpt help a bit? ha, yes but I promise I did my editing to add personal touch! Did I forget to change a school name before hitting send? More times than I’d like to admit.
(blog post idea: some successful points to include about teaching couples in a cover letter)
Step 4: Interviews!
We had a few interviews in December before the holidays and a few that continued into January. The holidays were full of stress dreams and hanging out in limbo as schools closed and we didn’t want to appear to needy by sending the email “So! Please say my interview went well. What is the next step? Do you like me????!?”
One school was kind enough to tell us that we were on a short list but the interview process wouldn’t even begin until the second week of January.
Two schools pursued us pretty seriously. One even asked if we needed a faster timeline and if another school was interested in us. It was a wild time as we weighed moving to two totally different cultures and raising our family in Country A vs Country B. Each day my opinion would change! I even made a spread sheet with a point system!
(blog idea: share my spread sheet? blog idea: how to have a joint interview with husband)
Step 5: Inspect possible school
The last website you should sign up for is International School Review. We did have to pay for a subscription but I found it really helpful. In this website, you will likely be able to find the school you are considering and see how past teachers have rated it. Keep in mind that many of the people who are going to go out of their way to review a school often want to leave a poor review so you are going to see some pretty low scores. Nonetheless, I still was able to glean through these reviews to get an idea of where the school was in addressing real problems and if certain theme reoccurred across multiple reviews.
(blog idea: funniest reviews I found while digging through International School Review. Ha! Teachers are clever and petty and ISR could be a form of entertainment!)
Step 6: stress and freak out
THIS IS A HUGE DECISION TO MAKE! Tell friends and family and let them tell you which country they will pick just so you can feel guilty if you ultimately choose the other country. Post on Reddit only to be given 10% advice and 90% sass from strangers… “How is this a hard decision, Country A obviously.” Make a point system on a spreadsheet to find yourself tweaking that and tweaking this and oh, look, same score… -_-
Step 7: Accept a job and seal your fate
There were so many deciding factors in us choosing Brazil, so many! Some things that were actually helpful:
- comparing paycheck to cost of living and being honest with husband about what we needed long term
- messaging with friends who have actually lived in those countries
- emailing a teacher at the schools that we were considering (this is a request you can make to the hiring committee and is often a green flag that they readily make it available)
By January, we finally made the decision, it was a relief to be done with the hiring process and to move onto the moving part. We emailed each school we were in contact with to close some doors and to accept the one and only.
Since accepting the job, we have felt more and more confident with our decision. We have initialed the contract, shared all of the necessary documents for the visa to be sorted by the school, and been in contact with the head of schools regarding the calendar and time table for my husbands school. We still have roughly 4 months to the move so it hasn’t picked up much speed yet but it is sure to pass too quickly. For now, we’re soaking up every last bit of Bangkok before the big move
Please check back in as we tackle all the other steps it takes to actually get there!